


AIRSHIP

by P5soleilnoir



Series: Goro Week 2019 [5]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, Goro Week 2019, Introspection, Violence, p5soleilnoir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 21:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20803313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/P5soleilnoir/pseuds/P5soleilnoir
Summary: A story about the SIU Director's Palace, and the final conversation his Shadow and Goro have before he is murdered.





	AIRSHIP

**Author's Note:**

> Moving on to Day 5 of Goro Week, this time with Persona, Palace, and Shadow! This entire idea of the SIU Director's Palace was supposed to be explored in Cherry Bomb first: I wanted the Phantom Thieves to find out the director and Goro were linked somehow, and go in his Palace to glean all the information that Goro refused to give them – even possibly the keywords to Goro's Palace. I scrapped the idea in the end, as I thought having two Palace arcs in the same story and one right after another would be too much, so here are the remnants of it into a brand-new one-shot!

Against that inky black sky, Tokyo’s millions of colorful lights had never seemed so vivid and alive than in that very moment.  
  
As far as the eye could see, spread across an endless horizon, shone all those fluorescent stars, the perfectly arranged white rows from the skyscrapers, the blinking reds at their top, the eye-catching pinks from the billboards, the vivid greens and blues from the screens. And there, at its epicenter, rose the flaming yellows and oranges of Tokyo Tower.  
  
From 2000 feet up in the air, Akechi Goro kept staring at it all.  
  
This area of the Palace was long cleared, with all Shadows, tricks and traps taken care of. Some blood had splattered across the walls, but it did nothing to taint the magnificence of the place – luxurious carpets mapping the floor, old-fashioned lamps lighting the dim environment with their soft brightness, embellishments carved into each door, ceiling made of ornate ebony, every last detail around ranged from Empire to Renaissance, even Louis XV. It was like being thrown back a century earlier, in one of those European mansions that only the elite could own and dwell in. The floating aspect of it was the only novel factor.  
  
In hindsight, it came as no surprise to Goro that the SIU Director’s Palace would be an airship.  
  
He didn’t know him that much – they met perhaps a couple of times at best with the rest of their interactions limiting themselves to phone calls, but those rare instances had been more than enough for him to form an opinion that wouldn’t budge from his mind anytime soon. High and mighty, pompous, thinking himself untouchable and indispensable, one could flip through a dictionary and they would surely find the director's portrait linked to each adjective without much trouble. Sae-san had also mentioned in passing how splendid the view was from his office, which apparently sported a window that took one third of the wall and dominated Tokyo in its entirety. Of course someone who was so used to looking down on the people, on the city, on the _world, _would imagine themselves living aboard an airship. It was only natural – the great stood above, the small crawled below.  
  
A real shame that among the conceit and self-importance, the director was also pathetically delusional.  
  
Snorting to himself, Goro stepped back from the balustrade and got a move on. He had a job to complete, and time was not eternal. With his belongings vanishing alongside his uniform in favor of his constricting dark suit, he had no way to check how long it had been since he first stepped inside the Palace; if he had to estimate, he would say roughly two hours had elapsed, perhaps more. He had lazed around long enough, but then again, it didn’t help that he had found no sign of the director yet. Even interrogating the Shadows yielded no results, no matter how _persuasive _he had gotten. Either way, all of them crumpled to the floor with a bullet in the head.  
  
Snapping back to attention, Goro moved swiftly and silently, his manner speaking of years of experience. He knew the floor was clear but there was no such thing as a hitman that was too prudent; he stuck to walls, remained light and nimble on his feet, never betrayed a single emotion on his hidden face except the cold, unreadability that befit a true professional. This did a turnaround the moment he sneaked past a door and reached an area he didn’t explore yet – a pack of Shadows immediately spotted him and charged like one. Goro leapt a pace back and reached for his visor, feeling the prelude of adrenaline shoot through his veins like it did so many times before.  
  
“Come,” he whispered, eyes narrowing as his voice rose to a scream, “Loki!”  
  
A gust of wind blasted all, repelling the nearest small fry and forcing the rest to back down – Loki appeared, tall, imposing, almost smirking as he nonchalantly took a seat on the hilt of his scorching sword. Goro bent one knee forward and slammed his hand against the floor, calling upon the source of this dark power once more.  
  
“Too slow!” he yelled at one particularly large Shadow while dodging its swipe, retaliating by plunging his serrated sword into its head. He instantly grabbed his visor again the moment he stepped back, sensing the adrenaline pump now in full.  
  
“Come on, Loki, give them hell. Deathbound!”  
  
A negative portal opened beneath whatever Shadow was unlucky enough to stand near it – by the time they roared their despair, dozens of demonic hands were already grabbing them by the limbs and tearing them apart as easily as plucking the petals off a flower. One humanoid Shadow, for its part, simply had its legs snapped off its hips like it was a glorified wishbone, producing a huge cracking sound that might have made Goro feel nauseous once. Today, there was only room for contempt.  
  
Backing down a bit so that he could catch his breath, Goro felt a gust of air announce an attack he hadn’t seen coming; swallowing a swear, he jumped back just in time to avoid the worst of the hit, but a vivid ache still tore across his suit. With a hiss of half-pain, half-defiance, he glanced down at himself to notice a thin but long laceration branded upon his chest. The contact of the air against the little visible skin was akin to rubbing salt in his wound.  
  
Loki, perhaps sensing his other self had been hurt, retaliated unprompted with an explosion of flames toward the main offender, who immediately dropped dead as a charred corpse. Several other Shadows advanced, surrounding Loki in what was a clear attempt at overwhelming him through numbers. Meanwhile, Goro was fighting in close quarters, his sword swinging in the air and cutting whoever approached in half.  
  
_Come on, I don’t have time for this, I need to find the director’s Shadow and get this over with already—_  
  
But his inner frustration stopped dead on its tracks – because another Shadow was charging right at him like a battering ram, brandishing a clawed hand that clearly intended to kill. With how close it was, he would never be able to dodge it in time.  
  
_No…! _  
  
The look of stupefaction in his eyes lasted only a split second before a glare replaced it. The next instant, Goro flung himself backward to the ground, the Shadow swiping the air before landing on top of him and letting out a roar. Goro gritted his teeth and grabbed its head in one hand before yanking it back, pressing the barrel of his gun to the Shadow’s jaw with his other. Time seemed to freeze for a mere second in that moment before beginning to move again, and when the report went off, Goro never betrayed a blink. Blood splattered on him and the Shadow collapsed atop his frame as it finally disintegrated into thin air.  
  
Breathing slightly strained, Goro climbed to his feet, wiping some beads of sweat from his forehead all the while. Loki was still fighting with all his might, decimating through the thinning crowd of Shadows like they were made of water, splashing dark nebulas all around. Goro rushed to his Persona’s side, well determined to give him a hand, but just as he was raising his sword high in the air… a Shadow surged out of nowhere, his punch going not for him directly – but for his feet.  
  
“Ah…!”  
  
A huge quake went off, long minutes in his mind, mere seconds in reality before the ground collapsed under the shockwave. Goro gasped and tumbled down the room beneath alongside debris and dust, landing painfully onto the floor. The force of the impact left him momentarily stunned and he had to shake his head to clear it, but the hostile cries ringing across his ears finished to snap him back to his senses. The remaining Shadows had jumped down, followed by Loki whose grin didn’t seem as mischievous as it usually did; perhaps the battle was starting to wear him down as well. All too aware it was about time he wrapped up this fight, Goro launched himself across the tiny room – some kind of control area, given the dashboards and servers all around – and reached for his sword again, but was smacked before he could do so much as brandish it. Swatted away like a fly, he crashed backward into the wall, except it was actually a door.  
  
As one of the Shadows lunged at him and pinned him in place, what should never have budged gave way much too easily, sending the two of them in the next room – and Goro suddenly felt his blood chill.  
  
A high wind blew past him, the precursor to realization as his body reacted to it faster than his mind; sweat poured through his every last pore, heart hurled itself against his ribs, but only after that did he truly manage to analyze what his sight crammed into his brain, that this was the cargo room of the airship and it was open, the cold night air sucking all like a tornado, already reeling him in before it would throw him off-board and into the sky—  
  
The rest happened too fast for him to properly process. As he was flying toward the edge of the platform, something grabbed his wrist and clasped it tight. Unable to fight the great wind's deadly grasp, the Shadow whipped past him and was spat out of the open room, never to return, but Goro was already looking away, unable to tear his eyes off the scene. Loki, Loki was there, his hold on him never slacking even as he clutched in his other hand his sword, which he had stuck firmly into the floor by way of an inflexible pole. Half because of terror, half because of absolute awe, Goro remained entirely transfixed, only gaping as Loki heaved him toward the door frame with the strength of his one arm. It trembled against the force of the vacuum effect, but never did Loki release him; and at last, Goro snapped to his senses. Reaching out to the door, he grabbed the edge in an iron grip and hauled himself into the next room, his feet already landing on the floor effortlessly.  
  
Drops of sweat flying off his face, Goro immediately called Loki back into his heart and hopped onto the nearest piece of machinery, then jumped and climbed through the ceiling hole onto the upper floor. Only then did he allow himself to lean against the nearest wall as he struggled to catch his breath. For a moment, his heavy panting was the sole source of sound – and then, once his chest steadied and his shoulders settled, he spoke up at last.  
  
“Thanks,” he whispered, sensing his pulse slowly return to normal. “…Loki.”  
  
He felt something stir deep within himself – Loki’s way of acknowledging his gratitude. Goro swallowed, and finally straightened up. In his mind, the entire fight reeled like a sped up movie, ending on the cargo room as it opened onto the terrifying void and very nearly sucked him out to his doom. Because of course the cargo room just happened to be open while he was thrown there.  
  
Goro’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his gaze fell on the next, new door.  
  
It was about time that damn man got was he deserved.  
  
  
  
  
“Ah… Ah… You just… won’t give up, will you…?”  
  
The director’s Shadow wasn’t too different from his real world counterpart, all things considered. Only his attire was, looking very close to what Goro imagined a captain of the early 20th century would be like. However, the numerous tears and scratches across his uniform and face were certainly not supposed to be part of the equation, but this was just how things went.  
  
Seeing as how Goro kept his inexorable advance, the Shadow recoiled backward, like he were trying to put as much distance as possible between them. His smug, superior attitude from before the fight had now entirely winked out, replaced instead by an expression mixing defiance and great agitation. He kept dragging his body onto the floor while staring at his imminent murderer, teeth clenched hard, eyes glaring behind his glasses.  
  
By way of answer, Goro merely raised his gun and pointed it right at the Shadow’s forehead, features unreadable, voice silent. It evoked a flinch out of his target, but the knowledge of his incoming death seemed to trigger a different response than what Goro would have expected. Rather than cowering in fear, the fierce determination in his golden eyes seemed to burn brighter.  
  
“I can’t believe… I can’t believe Shidou is doing this,” he breathed, sweat rolling down his face. “Getting rid of me, of all people… After I’ve been his most devoted ally from the very start…”  
  
Goro’s index finger tightened around the trigger, a motion that did not escape the Shadow. A brief silence went on, and by the time he realized his lips were moving, the words had already gotten out.  
  
“Sorry, but you never were Shidou’s most devoted ally. I am,” he found himself saying, his cold gaze unchanging. “You were only a pawn all along.”  
  
“And this is why he asked you to dispose of me, isn’t it?” the director responded at once, disgust and loathing now permeating his features in equal parts as he stared right back at him. “But tell me, do you really think _you _won’t end up the same way? Do you really think you alone will be spared?”  
  
A flash of insanity flashed across his features then – eyes opening wide, one corner of his lips curving into an uneven smile, the very picture of a mind now gone.  
  
“Don’t kid yourself. You too are but a mere lapdog the end, dancing in the palm of Shidou’s hand!” he panted with pure disdain, his breathing becoming ragged, his chest heaving faster. “You’ll know what I’m talking about one day, when you’re the one on the receiving end of a gun… When you realize that you too are nothing but a brainless and disposable puppet, _Akechi—” _  
  
His scorn ended with the deafening report of a bullet tearing the air. Tearing his skull.  
  
The next moment, his body was flopping backward with a loud thud.  
  
Goro gazed coldly at the object that had once been a living thing at his feet, the slits upon his visor glowering a dangerous red. Everywhere around, there was only silence. Then, the object disintegrated into thin air, leaving but a mere splatter of blood on the parquet.  
  
The words echoed loud and clear inside his head like some kind of sick tune was stuck in it. The implication that the director and himself stood on the same level… that they were the same. That _he _would suffer the same fate and fall prey to Shidou’s game like some oblivious pawn. That he would end up like the broken, discarded corpse on the floor before vanishing forever.  
  
_Hmph. As if. _  
  
Goro couldn’t help but snort. It was such an absurd thought, so ridiculous, all he could do was smile in amusement before nothingness stole over his features once more.  
  
He was almost regretting pulling the trigger. Just so that the director could live and witness his triumph, just so that he could make him eat his words and beg for forgiveness. Missing on all this fun was a shame, yet what was done was done. Brooding over it was now pointless but even so, Goro’s immense spite for this man only kept increasing tenfold. His gaze hardened.  
  
He would show him. He would show him that there would be only one man left standing on the chessboard in the end, and it wouldn’t be Shidou. He would kick Shidou off his throne… exactly like he had kicked the director off his stupid high horse. His stupid airship.  
  
Because he was the one in control. He was the one pulling the strings. He was the one who would have the last word in the end.  
  
No matter what some stupid, powerless and foolish old man had to say.  
  
_That's right… You don't know anything! Don't talk like you know what you're talking about!_  
  
A tremor went off then, causing him to stumble dangerously. The Palace was starting to collapse, as evidenced by the ringing of explosions in the distance and the alarm bells blaring all around the room. Goro straightened up, barely avoiding the floor as the quakes became more violent and frequent, and with one last glare at the spot where the body had lain, he sprinted for the exit. But no matter how much urgency begged him to stay alert and focused, all he could focus on was the venomous scorn swirling deep inside, departing from his core and soon spreading through his veins, cells and mind. He refused to prove him right, and so he made a blood oath.  
  
“I will never end up like you. Just you watch._” _  
  
The exit was in sight, tipping downwards as the airship rapidly lost altitude. Like he were pushed forward by a great tailwind, Goro launched himself across the final corridor and jumped, jumped so far he was nearly flying, and crossed over the point source of blinding light that would lead him back to the real world.  
  
  
  
  


* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Take a look at [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/p5soleilnoir) if you're interested in my fanfic updates, sneak peeks of future stories, chatting with me, or otherwise seeing 99% of Goro pictures and content!
> 
> [My profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/P5soleilnoir/profile) is regularly updated in accordance with my current and future projects, so feel free to check it out every now and then!


End file.
